Management is simply getting things done with and through people. It gets people to accomplish some laid down goals and objectives of the organization. According to Robbins, DeCenzo & Coulte, management involves organizing, leading, controlling, coordinating, arrangement, and staffing. Management is a process of immobilizing resources to achieve a common goal. It also involves setting up goals and objectives that are beneficial to both, employees and organizations.
Planning involves forecasting and developing those goals or objectives. Organizing, on the other hand, consists of arranging and coming up with an organizational structure. This clearly defines the lines of authority and responsibility. Leading involves motivating people towards the set goals, giving instructions, and supervising. Furthermore, coordination is a function of management that involves incorporating both, employees and organizational goals. Staffing is a management function, which deals with recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, remuneration, training, and career development.
The Role That Management Should Play in Workplace Psychology
The business environment has become extremely dynamic and it has brought many challenges. For example, it shifts focus from traditional human resource management to strategic human resource management. Undoubtedly, employees are the most valuable resource if compared to all others. Therefore, the organizations have to consider this supreme resource first. The difference between one organization and the other is the quality of its workforce. The management has to find ways of not only acquiring employees but also retaining them.
One of the ways to ensure this is to come up with defining their role in workplace psychology. Workplace psychology is an effort focused on ensuring and enhancing work life. This is geared to a free physical and emotional stress environment. Stress management and conflict management will be effectively dealt with as discussed below.
Stress Management at the Workplace
Workplace stress is normal but, when its level is too high, it affects the productivity level and also leads to health issues. With the worrying economy, many workers undergo a mixture of feelings. For example, there is an increased fear of uncertainty because of layoffs. Stress management at the workplace will not improve the productivity of employees; it also does not reduce ill health and, in turn, reduces the organization’s cost such as; the cost of hospitalization, litigation, compensation.
Communication is first improved by ensuring that there is a clear organizational structure. This reduces confusion because everyone is aware of the requirements and knows what is expected of them and whom they can report to in case of grievances. Secondly, when the management is making decisions or coming up with policies, employees are involved.
Conflict Management
According to Hellriegel, Slocum, and Woodman, (1998) conflict is defined as the procedure in which one party takes that its wellbeing is being opposed or negatively influenced by another gathering. Conflict within an organization can be either positive or negative. Negative conflicts affect an individual’s performance and the employee’s psychological well-being. Such conflicts create unnecessary tension, anxiety, and apprehension. The management can manage these conflicts through accommodating, collaborating, and compromising styles.
How Ayame’s Cultural Background May Affect Her Perception
Japanese bow in expressing, gratitude, when apologizing or when greeting someone. Canadians, on the other hand, do not do this. Instead, they give a handshake or hug someone. Ayame will perceive this to be wrong according to their culture. Besides, they do not even hug or kiss in public places like Canadians (Seijts, 2006). After calling the person’s last name, ‘San’ is added. This is for both children and adults.
Furthermore, when entering the Japanese houses or some of the hotels, one is supposed to remove their shoes. This is not necessary for Canadian culture and Ayame is likely to interpret that as being disrespectful. Japanese turn their back on someone of a higher status. Canadians do not do this. Ayame then is likely to perceive that she is being insulted anytime a person of her lower status than hers, a project manager, does not turn their backside.
Staring in Japan is also an offense in their culture. Even in crowded places, they will always avoid eye contact. This is much different in Canada since staring is not a big deal. Ayame will perceive staring as an intrusion of her privacy (McShane & Glinow, 2010).
Motivation Techniques to Motivate Ayame
Learning Japanese Culture
The human resource manager or the training manager may dedicate hours to training the Japanese culture. It will be brief but, it will make a lot of impact in terms of reducing conflicts at the workplace that are brought by people having different perceptions.
Cognitive Dissonance
As suggested by Leon Festinger, this occurs when there are some discomforts due to different perceptions between the person’s feels and the world around them. This technique proposes that people are motivated to bring down dissonance through changing current cognitions. Dissonant elements include a feeling of anger, surprise, and embarrassment.
Conclusion
Managing the motivations and expectations of the workforce in the 21st century has brought with its complexities and challenges in terms of the need to have a clear organizational structure that is motivating to the workers. A motivated workforce will help an organization to have a competitive advantage. HR management can play this role by identifying stress, conflicts cause in the organization and coming up with ways of overcoming them.
References
Hellriegel, D. Slocum, J. W. & Woodman, R. (1998). Organizational Behavior, (8th ed). Cincinnati OH: South-Western College Publishing.
McShane, S. L., & Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational behavior: emerging knowledge and practice for the real world (5th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Seijts, G. H. (2006). Cases in organizational behavior. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.